Reading the Bible for School?

Stephen Prothero, the chairman of Boston University's religion department thinks that public schools should teach Bible literacy.

Biblical illiteracy is not just a religious problem. It is a civic problem with political consequences. How can citizens participate in biblically inflected debates on abortion, capital punishment or the environment without knowing something about the Bible? Because they lack biblical literacy, Americans are easily swayed by demagogues on the left or the right who claim — often incorrectly — that the Bible says this about war or that about homosexuality.

One solution to this civic problem is to teach Bible classes in public schools. By Bible classes I do not mean classes in which teachers tell students that Jesus loves them or that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, but academic courses that study the Bible's characters and stories as well as the afterlife of the Bible in literature and history. Last week, the Georgia Board of Education gave preliminary approval to two elective Bible courses designed to teach religion rather than preach religion. As long as teachers stick to the curriculum, this is a big step in the right direction.

He concludes with a more concrete proposal:

What makes sense is one Bible course for every public high school student in the U.S. This is not a Christian proposal. It does not serve the political left or the political right. It serves our young people and our public life.

What is perhaps the most striking is that the author of this particular story thinks the only people who would be alarmed about public schools teaching their kids about the Bible are people who are not particularly religious. It is in public schools more than universities that it makes a difference whether or not you agree with a teacher's stance on an issue, because that teacher has some genuine authority over you, including the capability to give you detention or get you suspended. If you were to present the Gordon Tullock line that you have a better chance of dying on your way to the voting booth than for your vote to actually make a difference in a high school civics class, that would not go over so well. Conservatives already have a hard enough time with schools teaching macroevolution and global warming, so if you contradict what they believe about the Bible, they'll certainly not take it lightly.

What would conservative Christians argue about if the Bible was taught in schools? Well, try David's relationship with Jonathan; it's been argued that the two had a homosexual relationship, particularly in light of 2 Samuel 1:25-26. will the curriculum mention that Jonathan's willingness to risk his life for David was what he was referring to, as Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13)? Or for that matter, will it mention the cultural differences in showing affection?

Further, if an entire course is taught on the Bible, that can certainly cover a lot of ground. It's not inconceivable that a student could read the entire Bible during a full-year course. Were the course to mandate that, then it would certainly be difficult to impartially teach the Bible, particularly with such verses as, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16, ESV) among others.

Frankly I don't think this will ever happen (and incidentally, doesn't this just look like a ploy to find jobs for religion majors?). I would favor it only for one reason: because it's so divisive and personal an issue, it will likely make an excellent conversation starter for parents to take interest in what their kids are learning, and that is one of the most important keys to success for kids who aren't already motivated enough. For the most part, though, I'm pretty sure it won't happen, and I'm not disapointed at all by that.

NY Times: ManBearPig isn't real

The Times did not deny that global warming exists, far from it (but were that the case you'd just have to get a little bit suspicious). What they did say, though, was that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was not entirely, well, true.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

How weak is the science of global warming?

Still, Dr. Hansen said, the former vice president’s work may hold “imperfections” and “technical flaws.” He pointed to hurricanes, an icon for Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.

That last sentence basically said that forecasters predicted 9 out of the last 5 hurricanes. That's the standard joke about economists - they've predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions. Heck, if this stuff isn't better than macroeconomic theory, then screw it.

On that Most Fascinating of Topics

Barack Obama. And Tort Reform.

So apparently now Al Sharpton has decided he's not going to endorse Obama that easily. This story reveals a little more about an issue Obama supports, tort reform. Sharpton thinks that victims of police brutality need to be able to sue the police department, and this limits their ability to do that.

On the subject of tort reform, it just strikes me that the benefits of such practices is that lawyers will not have nearly the incentive to attract clients, from ambulance-chasing to charing nothing except for a portion of winnings in court (that is to say, if they lose, all their work was for free). Now of course, if a lawyer cannot get $10,000,000 in tort damages that way, their expected payout surely decreases. This will reduce the number of some of the more frivolous lawsuits; even the ones that fail are costly to businesses because their lawyers do not work for free, and of course, business costs are part of what is covered by consumers in the price of goods and services. Consumers are a demographic of all people, sexes, races, and creeds (well, maybe not the Amish, but you get the idea), after all.

***

The most bizarre part of the story came right at the end.

Does Sharpton's endorsement matter? CBS 2 polled some New Yorkers and the
results were mixed, but the majority appeared to lean toward the side that
believes Sharpton's endorsement will make a difference.

The very premise of such a question seems absurd. It probably went something like this:
"Will Sharpton's influence matter?"
"Well, not for me, but I can see that it might matter, sure."
I wouldn't be surprised if the above exchange happened with a lot of white people polled. The point is that you don't conduct opinion polls by asking people what they think other people think, if you want anything useful anyway; what you ask is what they think and then you get a representative sample and judge from that. Therefore, the question should have been, Do you care what Al Sharpton thinks?

HA!

Don Boudreaux makes a great point, which I think a lot of people were probably thinking.